Comments

I can see how this article has a sense of humor. The author certainly does not expect physics to end. But I have a number of theories about the qualiific beginning or end of physics. Although there is no end to mathematics without irrationalism, physics more and more will depend on theories of perception in how it is interpreted. And this is the great weakness, that, at least in the common mind, physics will be no more than a perception of a theorem handed down from ancient ages, or interpreted ad-hoc with no concept of definitive authority. More and more often, concise theories will depend on computing power, and be available on a casual-consumer basis. Maybe economics will save the authoritativeness of physics, but in doing so it may also inhibit casual formulations (e.g. through brain enhancement), and thus the very development of physics itself. The contrary theory is fairly radical, even if it is widely accepted: that only a handful of individuals at any one time grasp any one discipline which concerns science. But if that is the case, the question of survival has no obvious answer, as one person could say that it doesn't matter, and another could say that everything depends on it. Still further person would say that it's open to interpretation. And in my assessment, those who hold it is open to interpretation are in a greater majority, and will eventually have emotional influence at the very least. I predict also that this emotional influence will gradually affect how methodology is conducted so that, consciously or not, the results we get are partly a product of our thinking. That's kind of what pragmatism says. If we can think in a different way, and it doesn't affect the facts, then that's that, it's something to do. But it can affect theory even if it doesn't affect facts. Part of my reasoning is that physics is partly a logical development of the Greek physiologoi who thought substances were of one kind of another, and then Plato added that it was of one form or another, and it really didn't develop much beyond that. In some ways, a more encompassing logic would be more cognitively developed. Certainly physicists shouldn't fail just because philosophers have failed. It raises the question of whether success always involves a successful theory. Perhaps, in some bitmap sense, physicists are realizing their emotional lives within the theories of materials. For example, what if there were a singular entity which was purely hypothetical, which could explain every element of matter. Theories are not much different from this. They just quantify the abstraction and add relationships. But that doesn't mean that the relationships are explained. They just happen to be quantified. And the theory has been divided into little pieces. The unified theory is really the theory of how to have a theory without matter, or how to have the matter for a theory. It is not the principle of how to unify matter, or designate systems.

I have two articles (drafts) I wrote on physics, from a quasi-philosophical point of view, if anyone cares to read them (taking a class on Platonism if you want the context).

PS On Air: The Super Germ Threat

NOV 2, 2016

In the latest edition of PS On
Air
, Jim O’Neill discusses how to beat antimicrobial resistance, which
threatens millions of lives, with Gavekal Dragonomics’ Anatole Kaletsky
and Leonardo Maisano of
Il Sole 24 Ore.

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